


my old habits get confused

by escherzo



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cabin Fic, Consent Play, Eye!Martin, M/M, Size Kink, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:07:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22611505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/escherzo/pseuds/escherzo
Summary: Martin has always been bigger than him. He knew that on some level, intellectually, but here at the safehouse, crammed into one double bed, trying to tuck himself into the spaces left by Martin's huge, sprawling limbs, it weighs on his thoughts more than he thought it would.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 36
Kudos: 839
Collections: Rusty Kink





	my old habits get confused

**Author's Note:**

> am I going to ever stop writing post-159 cabinfic? probably not!
> 
> gray-A/demi Jon here experiencing attraction for the first time ever and is Not prepared for it. some consent play (after pre-arranged alternate safeword that isn't "stop", Jon tells Martin to stop several times because they're both into having that ignored). several exciting adventures into the land of "what powers might Martin have ended up with?" 
> 
> sidenote s/o to the person who invented the concept of Martin's hair going white due to the Lonely 
> 
> title from "I Know" by Dear and the Headlights

“I know the way,” Jon says, and Martin's cold hand entwines with his own, big enough that it swallows his palm. 

*

Martin has always been bigger than him. He knew that on some level, intellectually, but here at the safehouse, crammed into the one double bed, trying to tuck himself into the spaces left by Martin's huge, sprawling limbs, it weighs on his thoughts more than he thought it would.

On a good day, Jon could lay claim to being five foot six. Martin is well over six feet tall, and broad besides, and Jon has never thought about anyone in the way he thinks about Martin. He could pretend it's lingering stress that makes him lie awake hours after Martin's even breathing has turned to snuffling snores, imagining Martin rolling over on top of him and pinning in place, but he knows it's more than that. 

It's just—he's _so big_. 

Jon has never been attracted to anyone before. But looking at Martin, something bright and sharp twists in his gut, and he loses time thinking about Martin smiling at him so gently as he uses his bulk to hold Jon in place on the mattress. Thinking about his freckles, his ginger hair that's gone shock-white, the size of his hands and the promise of the size of other things because of it. It's terrifying. He doesn't know what to do with it. He's spent so long not thinking about his own body and what it wants, and here Martin is, distracting all of his thoughts. 

The shower doesn't stay warm enough for him to have time to wank unless he's already worked up. In the past few days, that's been enough time. There's a crawling ache under his skin, a buzzing under his fingertips, a _need_ he has never felt directed towards any other human being. It might be driving him a little mad.

He can't ask for it. Doesn't know how to ask for it. Doesn't know how to put into words how he wants Martin to push him down into the mattress, to trap him in place, to overwhelm him with sensation until he doesn't have to think anymore. He stares across the breakfast table at Martin and thinks, _I want you to pin me down and fuck me,_ and can't so much as manage a word of regular conversation. He doesn't know how anyone gets by feeling like this all the time. Feeling like this towards anyone they think is pretty. It's a twisting, raging fire inside him and it chokes out any attempt at words he might have.

“Jon?” Martin asks, halfway through a bite of scrambled egg. “Are you okay?”

Jon takes a moment to try and collect himself. “Fine,” he says, after a long pause. “I'm fine.”

“Basira's statements should be here soon,” Martin says, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth, and it's all Jon can do to not stare at that, to not imagine Martin biting at his own lip instead. 

“Yeah,” he manages. “That's good.”

*

“I'm going to go for a walk,” Martin tells him, and leans down, down, _down_ to reach his lips, looming over him as he lays a gentle kiss on Jon's mouth. 

“Tell me if you see any good cows,” Jon says, trying to ignore the way the kiss makes his knees go weak and the words make his voice crack. 

After Martin closes the door, he collapses to the floor, legs no longer willing to hold him up. 

*

Martin brings someone home with him. An old man, twisted and gray, heavy crows feet around his dark eyes. His clothes are impeccably pressed in a way that reminds Jon, for a moment, of Elias.

“He said he had a story for you,” Martin says, twisting his hands. “I didn't want to tell him no.”

Jon is so hungry he could cry with it, and all he can do is nod. The faint sound of the tape recorder he didn't know he had in his pocket clicks on. 

“Statement of Oliver Campbell, regarding a cemetery he once found,” he begins, and something in the man's eyes takes on a foggy tint. “Taken direct from subject, October 20, 2019. Statement begins.”

The man blinks, shudders, opens his mouth, and for the first time in a long while, Jon's hunger subsides. 

*

Oliver stays for tea and lunch, at Martin's insistence, and Jon curls himself into a ball on the couch and listens to the bright chatter in the kitchen. 

“Why?” Jon asks, after he leaves.

“I couldn't watch you starve yourself anymore. I'm sorry.”

“You shouldn't be.”

“I don't care.” Martin's shoulders are set, determined, and he reaches out to stroke the tense lines of Jon's back. “I don't want you to hurt anyone, but I can't watch you wither away, either.” 

Jon sighs. He feels good, better than he has since he pulled the statement out of Peter and left what was left of his body to rot after. It's easier that this was Martin's doing. It still only helps so much.

“Don't encourage me,” he says, voice barely above a whisper. “Don't let me be this monster.”

“I don't care if you're a monster,” Martin says, hands wrapping around his and enveloping them entirely. “You're still--”

“I'm still yours,” Jon Knows, and says, and Martin shivers. 

“Yeah.” 

*

“How did you know?” Jon asks later. He's elbow-deep in suds, scrubbing at crusted-over frying pans and tea mugs stained brown. It's easier to keep his hands busy than to let himself think in moments like these. 

“How did I know what?” Martin asks from the table. He pauses, writes a line in his notebook, scribbles it out so vigorously Jon can hear the paper tear, moves on to the next line, scribbles it out again. For the first week he didn't write at all. For the first week, he would sit at the table, completely silent, half-faded from view with a pen in one shaking hand, and Jon would come up behind him and wrap his arms around Martin's shoulders, trying to bring him back to the world, shivering all the while as the chill of the Lonely seeped into his bones through Martin's skin.

He hasn't written much since. That he's trying at all is a good sign. Progress. 

“How did you know he had a story for me?” Jon asks, reaching out for the dishtowel crumpled on the counter to dry off the plates from breakfast. 

“I...” Martin hesitates. His eyes glow ever so faintly, the green flecks in the deep brown lighting up. “I don't know. I just—did, I guess.” 

There is a faint aura of power that lingers around Martin, a buzzing under his skin that sets off a primal instinct in Jon to flee from the predator beside him. Some of it is that cold, hollow feeling that wrapped around him in the Lonely. Some of it is... more familiar than that. 

Jon was dead in all but name only for six months. Martin wasn't the Archivist, but for six long months, Jon was in a coma and he was the closest there was, and there is still a lingering touch of power in his words. An echo of the Ceaseless Watcher. Sometimes, he meets Martin's eyes and there's a spark in them that calls to mind _mine. Ours._

“Did you compel him?” Jon asks, because he can't not. 

“No!” Martin says. “... I mean. I, uh. I don't think so? How do you know when it happens?”

“Sometimes it makes my lips tingle,” Jon says, smiling despite himself. “Most of the time I just know because people tell me things they wouldn't otherwise.”

Martin is silent for a long moment, staring down at his notebook instead of up at Jon. 

“Ask me something,” Jon says. “Something I don't want to tell you.”

“What? No!”

“ _Ask me_ ,” Jon says, power buzzing along his tongue, and Martin's gaze sharpens. He gets up all at once, moving to stand behind Jon, arms wrapping around his shoulders. 

“What do you want?” Martin asks, and Jon reaches up and entwines his soapy hands with Martin's. There's a long pause. Jon has never been afraid of Martin, isn't now, and yet he chokes on the words. The compulsion is weak. Well within his power to resist.

“Ask me,” he says again.

“What do you think about when you look at me?” Martin asks, and this time, Jon feels the shiver of it squirm down his spine.

“I've never been attracted to anyone before,” Jon whispers into the silence, and Martin hums out a contented noise and buries his face into the crook of Jon's neck. “I don't know what to do with this.” Martin's hands, wrapped around his, are so big. He could reach out and wrap a hand around Jon's neck, and it would encircle it entirely. 

“But you—you are, to me?”

“Yeah,” Jon confesses. “How do you live like this? I can't stop thinking about it.”

“I manage,” Martin says, ducking down quick to lay a kiss to the side of Jon's neck, and Jon shudders. “Are you sure?”

“I'm sure.” 

He turns, tugging his hands free of Martin's, and pushes them up under Martin's shirt, cold and wet and Martin yelps, and Jon takes the opportunity of his open mouth to go up on his toes and kiss Martin. Martin makes a low noise in the back of his throat and kisses back, mouth open against Jon's, hands moving down to pin him against the counter, and Jon clings to him, desperate, arousal sparking along all of his nerves as his tongue moves slick against Martin's, lost in all of it. 

“Please,” he says, because there's nothing else he can say. No other words in his head. 

Martin smiles against his lips. “Bed?” he asks, and all Jon can do is nod.

*

When Martin picks him up and lifts him over a shoulder like he weighs nothing, he doesn't fight it in the slightest. Doesn't want to. Gets distracted, more than anything, in the possibilities of what might come after this. He goes limp.

“I love you,” Martin says as he puts Jon down onto the mattress, big hands so gentle Jon could cry with it.

“I love you too,” Jon says. He has never meant it as much as he means it in this moment. All he wants is for Martin to claim him. Own him. 

Martin climbs onto the bed and straddles him, looking down, and the kindness in his gaze makes a lump rise in Jon's throat.

“Ask me,” Jon says.

“What do you want?”

There's the faintest buzz of compulsion, weak but _there_ , and it's almost what Jon needs. 

“ _Ask_ me,” he says again. Martin closes his eyes for a moment and then opens them again, and this time there is a glow to them, faint but vibrant green. 

“Tell me what you want,” Martin says. 

This time, the power comes through, wound around Martin's words, and Jon is no longer given the luxury of hesitation. He shudders. It's just what he needs.

“I want you to pin my hands to the bed and fuck me,” he says, the words out of his mouth before fear and hesitation can take them away. “I want it to hurt. I don't want to think anymore.”

Martin's gaze sharpens. 

“Are you sure?” he asks, and Jon nods. 

“I thought--” Martin begins, but doesn't finish, and Jon's cheeks hurt with the flush that rises to them. He 'doesn't.' Martin knows that, and he Knows Martin knows that. And here he is, wanting it nonetheless. Wanting Martin so badly his bones ache with it.

“What do _you_ want?” Jon asks as he wriggles out of his trousers, the sharp heat of Martin's gaze making even the drag of fabric against his skin feel electric. The curling weight of his compulsion wraps heavy around his words.

Martin shudders. 

“I want to fuck you,” he says, and he bites his lip to hold back the rest but it comes out nonetheless, mumbled and quick and a little slurred. “I want to make you hurt because I know you'll like that, and I will too. So much. I want you to tell me it's too much, you can't, and--” Martin claps a hand over his own mouth, muffling the rest of the words.

“Martin,” Jon says, wrapping a hand around Martin's to draw it away from his mouth. “ _Tell me the rest._ ”

“I don't want to,” Martin says, even as he reaches down and undoes the top button of Jon's shirt, and then the second, and then the third, baring the mottled brown of Jon's skin to the cold night air. “I don't want you to look at me differently if I say it, or be afraid of me, and I don't know if before Peter I would have—”

“Peter is dead,” Jon growls. _I ripped him apart,_ he doesn't say, but they both know. Martin shudders. 

Martin's hands wrap tight around his wrists, hard enough to bruise, and Jon goes limp. Even as the buzzing in his ears grows louder and the world around their bed goes cold and foggy, he surrenders, legs open to the predator looming above him. 

“I love you,” Martin says, leaning down to press a kiss to the crook of Jon's neck that makes him gasp and squirm in place. “I love you so much. I shouldn't want to hurt you.”

Jon's smile is a faint but determined thing. “I want you to. I want to be marked by an Entity on my own terms, for once.” 

“I'm not--”

“It's alright.” Jon reaches out blindly and fumbles for the nightstand drawer until his fingers close around the bottle of lube inside it. “I'm not human either anymore. We don't have to pretend.” 

He forces his eyes closed as Martin slicks up his fingers. Arousal itself isn't new. Looking at someone, at Martin, and thinking, _I want you_ , makes the curling heat in his gut twist so hard it's nearly painful, and he can't watch anymore. _Is this what it's like for everyone else?_ he wants to ask, and Martin kisses his chest, just below the twist of his missing ribs, so tender it aches, and he shudders. 

“Maybe not everyone,” Martin says, and Jon's eyes fly open again. “But when I look at you—yeah.”

“You--” 

Martin's smile turns wicked and he reaches down and rubs a lube-slick finger over Jon's hole. “Yeah, I heard that.” 

“Oh,” Jon breathes. He lifts his arms above his head, wrapping one hand around his own wrist. “O-okay.” 

“Tell me “red” if it's too much,” Martin says, and Jon can't hear his thoughts, but he Knows all at once that he will say “stop,” later, and not want to stop, and Martin wants to hear that and keep going without having to be afraid of hurting him. He pushes his hips up against nothing at the thought, the burning inside him sharpening into a pain so good it hurts again. 

“Not red,” he chokes out, and Martin grins and reaches up to wrap one big hand around both of his wrists as he pushes one thick finger inside, slow and steady, and god. God, it's so much, already, more than Jon has ever taken. He's thought about it. He's thought about what it would feel like to have Martin like this, and this is already more, and all he can do is whimper as Martin's finger curls inside him and lights all of his nerves up. 

_More,_ he doesn't say, but Martin knows, and a second finger pushes in alongside the first, a stretch so good it makes his teeth ache. Martin's big fingers fuck him slowly, punching the breath out of him, and he closes his eyes, unable to do anything but moan and push back onto them. It's already nearly too much, but he's going to have to take more, and Martin has him pinned down. He won't have a choice to do anything but. 

“Good boy,” Martin says, low and fond as he fucks his fingers in harder, a third threatening at his rim, the whole weight of him pinning Jon in place. 

Martin pulls his fingers out and Jon shudders, all at once too empty, and then something much, much bigger than two fingers rubs against his hole. It's going to hurt. He wants it so badly he can barely breathe. 

“Stop,” he begs, opening his eyes to watch the way the words wash over Martin. “Please, stop.” _Please, just do it. I want you to do it. I want to pretend I meant it when I told you to stop._

Martin takes an unsteady breath. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” Jon says, pushing back against the pressure. 

Martin sinks into him, slow and inexorable, so big it punches the breath out of his lungs, and he can feel tears beading at the corners of his eyes as Martin's grip tightens on his wrist, as the weight of Martin's body presses him down into the mattress, entirely unable to escape. He moans, high and reedy, fighting against the grip, but Martin is so much bigger than him that it doesn't matter. He can feel every burning inch as Martin pushes deeper. 

“Oh, god,” he chokes out, and Martin smiles. 

“Good?” he asks, and Jon nods, lost to it. 

Martin's hips press against his, filling him to the root, and he squirms from the pressure, fingers flexing against Martin's tight grip as Martin starts to rock his hips, slow and steady, the whole length of him drawing out in a long, slow burn of a movement before pressing back in, making him cry out as the world around him whites out with pleasure. Martin's other hand drags down his chest, leaving faint red lines from his nails as he goes, and settles at the base of his stomach, just above his straining, desperate cock, and when he looks down he can see the faint swell of his stomach every time Martin sinks in fully, the way Martin's hand presses down to feel himself from the outside. 

“Martin,” Jon whimpers, and Martin fucks into him harder, taking the word and breaking it halfway through, Martin's name turning into a whining plea. 

He pushes his hips back against Martin's, forcing him deeper, and it hurts, it _hurts_ , and he says, “Stop, please,” because he knows Martin will like it even as his eyes swim with tears. He wants it to hurt. He wants to be ruined. 

Martin fucks into him harder, faster, hand tightening around his wrists hard enough to bruise, and all at once the rush of sensation overtakes Jon and he comes, untouched, making a mess of the both of them, and Martin's grin sharpens, turns feral, and he fucks in once, twice, hard enough to make Jon cry out, squirming with overstimulation and unable to get away, and then comes deep inside him, a hot rush against his insides. The movement of Martin's hips slow as he finishes, filling Jon up, and all Jon can do is dig his nails into his own palms and hold on, lost to sensation. 

“I love you,” Martin says, leaning down to kiss him openmouthed and messy, and Jon kisses back, legs tightening around Martin's hips to keep Martin where he is inside of him. He feels so good. 

“I love you too,” Jon says, and the room is pitch black, and that's the only way he knows that his own eyes are glowing green like Martin's. This is worship. Communion. A gift to the Eye as much as it is to each other.

For once, he doesn't hate that. 

*

“My mother used to call me a monster,” Martin says into the darkness, after, arms wrapped around Jon. “She didn't last long enough to know how true that would be.”

“There are worse things than being a monster,” Jon says, and even as he says it he knows perfectly well it's not something he'd ever be willing to say about himself. Martin sighs, curling closer to Jon. 

“I didn't want to be,” Martin says. “I just--”

“The older you got, the more you looked like your father, and he hurt her,” Jon whispers into the stillness, the Knowing washing over him all at once. “But you don't have to live life on her terms anymore.”

“No,” Martin says, tugging the blankets further up over the two of them. “But I think about it all the time anyway.” 

Jon is quiet for a long moment. 

“Neither of us chose to be something that wasn't human. It was something that happened to us,” he says, finally. “You did what you had to to survive.” 

“Do you believe that?”

“That you did what you had to?”

“No, that _you_ did.” 

“... No,” Jon admits, finally. “But I'm trying.” 

He can feel Martin's lips curve into a smile against the back of his neck and a shudder goes down his spine. 

“I love you,” Martin says. “I don't care if you're human anymore, not really. But I know you're trying. And that's what I care about.”

“I love you too,” Jon says, because he can't think of anything else to say.

*

The morning creeps in slowly, gentle sunlight and soft, blurring fog and the faint ozone smell of rain to come obscuring the highlands around them. Jon is awake for the dawn. Shuddered awake an hour before sunup, lost in the pained memories of Oliver and all the others. 

Martin tightens his grip around Jon's waist and draws him in closer, and Jon breathes out a sigh, relaxing into it. Before, when Martin slept, he would fade into the fog until he was nearly invisible when Jon shook him awake. Now, he's solid and real, a burning heat all along Jon's back. 

“Thank you,” Jon whispers into the early morning stillness, and Martin answers with a contented snore.


End file.
